A HEAPS ESTRIN SUCCESS STORY

In The Pocket

A story of new beginnings, good bones and a standout sale in a cautious market.

WORDS BY Jane McIver

IF YOU HAD TO EXPLAIN the pandemic to someone who didn’t live through it, you might reach for the greatest hits: sourdough starters, Zoom fatigue, neighbourhood walks, days blurring together. It was a chapter filled with, oddly, shared memories, even as we lived them apart. For Julia and Ian, it was also a season of new beginnings—of finding their first home.

In the winter of 2021, the couple was living downtown, watching the city quiet itself under another lockdown. They can’t quite pinpoint what propelled the move, only that they found themselves exploring real estate with Amanda Gaskey of Heaps Estrin. Ian’s parents had worked with Cailey Heaps years earlier, and Julia and Ian chose to follow suit.

They first fell for another east-end house—the one that got away. “We were sad about it,” Julia admits. But the loss clarified something important: they didn’t just want a house, they wanted their own corner of “The Pocket”.

It’s an apt name for one of Toronto’s most beloved micro-neighbourhoods—tucked just off the Danforth, yet distinctly its own. There’s street hockey at dusk, kids everywhere, green space within steps, and favourites like One Night Only Pizza, The Shmooz Café and The Wood Owl for date nights. It’s the kind of place where you learn your neighbours’ names without even trying.

Then, in answer to their wishes, 1 Ravina Crescent appeared during what was “a cold, dark, snowy January.” Things moved quickly: the property was listed on a Monday, seen on Tuesday, decided on by Wednesday.

It wasn’t instant infatuation, but there was plenty to love. There was the matter of a bold railing Julia still describes, laughing, as “Swiss cheese.” Yet the home had what mattered: great bones, a corner lot, south-facing sunlight and a two-car garage. In The Pocket, that’s a unicorn feature.

Ravina Crescent had what others couldn’t offer: sunlight, corner lot, strong schools and that rare garage.

◀ Lockdown Reno The house was purchased during COVID, which meant the couple had to work around lockdown restrictions. But with the help of family, they achieved their desired midcentury look and feel.

▲ Lockdown Reno The house was purchased during COVID, which meant the couple had to work around lockdown restrictions. But with the help of family, they achieved their desired midcentury look and feel.

Moving and settling in was a lockdown-era experience, for sure. “You couldn’t wander Home Depot to compare fixtures; you ordered online and hoped for the best.” Family pitched in: Julia’s dad took down an unwanted room divider and they made quick work of the infamous railing. Built-ins were added, closets customized, new AC installed, part of the roof replaced. Eventually the sleek black iron railing went in—the one that feels like it always belonged there.

Ravina Crescent became the main stage for everything that followed.

There was an engagement. Not at a candlelit restaurant, but over Olympic curling in the basement in sweatpants. Months later, a surprise wedding: joyfully unconventional, with Julia and Ian getting ready together at home. Their first look happened on that very staircase beneath the newly installed railing.

Then another moment: Julia discovered she was expecting just minutes before a work Zoom—joy arriving in the middle of an ordinary day. What followed was a steady layering of life: late-night feeds in a nursery imagined long before the baby’s arrival, morning light through south-facing windows, the small rituals that quietly turn a house into a family backdrop.

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Bringing baby James home made it feel suddenly, unmistakably, like a place that would be forever etched in memory, even if not where they would always dwell. The nursery with custom closets and wainscotting, the staircase framing wedding photos, backyard dinners and winter walks. It all amounted to five years gathered in the corners. Now 11 months old, James won’t remember this house. But to Julia and Ian, it will always be the place they learned how to be a family.

So why leave?

The answer is less about moving on than moving forward. In November, they found their next home in Moore Park—another place with good bones and room to grow. For Ian, it’s full circle; he grew up there, and James will attend the same school, play the same fields, trace the same routes. The next phase isn’t a break from their story, but its continuation.

That history made the sale feel weighty, like something personal, not transactional.

Listing in today’s market can feel daunting, but Julia felt confident. Ravina Crescent had what others couldn’t offer: sunlight, corner lot, strong schools and that rare garage. “It’s not a house someone would say, ‘another will come up’ to.”

Amanda guided timing and strategy. Julia laughs remembering the handoff: “I literally gave Amanda the keys and said, ‘Let me know when it sells’.”

It sold within seven days, drawing nine offers on offer night and achieving 115 per cent of asking—a standout result in a market where many listings continue to linger.

And in a detail almost too perfect, Julia later learned the new homeowners are expecting a baby. Another family is about to arrive with their own firsts—first night home, first snowy walk, first birthday candles—in the same rooms that held Julia and Ian through theirs.

When asked what the house would say about their time there, Julia pauses. “I feel like I grew up in this house,” she says.

Maybe that’s the truest measure of a home: how fully it holds one chapter and how graciously it makes space for the next.